Larsen

Larsen, consisting of Roberto Maria Clemente, Paolo Dellapiana, Silvia Grosso, Fabrizio Palumbo, and Marco Schiavo, operates as an enigmatic experimental rock outfit based in Torino, Italy. Near the start of 2000 the quartet initiated contact with artist, label head, and producer Michael Gira by dispatching a sequence of oddly wrapped CDRs each month on the 1st and the 21st. Once the shipments ceased, a letter arrived outlining a precise assignment: Gira was instructed to reach Torino on the first day of the next month, devote exactly twenty-one days to producing the band, and depart on the twenty-second. The same envelope contained both a round-trip airline ticket to Italy and an upfront sum of money. Intrigued by the unusual proposal and by the music already received, Gira accepted. During the three-week session he oversaw the recordings without ever laying eyes on the musicians, who performed behind a partition and exchanged no words with him directly; instead, assistants handled all practical support and interpreted between languages. Gira listened for hours to the performances, observed the cast shadows on the screen, and at intervals caught the sound of heated disputes among the members. Recording took place only when the assistants signaled that conditions were appropriate. Once taping finished, roughly ten hours of tape underwent editing while the partition once again kept the producer and engineer apart from the group, with assistants continuing to relay instructions and responses. The completed album, Rever, appeared on Gira’s Young God imprint in the first months of 2002.